Jack Ma Is Retiring From Alibaba. He Won’t Go Far.
马云正式退休，但仍将影响阿里帝国

HONG KONG — Jack Ma formally retired on Tuesday from Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant he founded that helped transform the way hundreds of millions of people shop and made him one of the world’s richest men.

香港——马云周二正式从阿里巴巴退休，他创办的这家中国电商巨头帮助改变了数亿人的购物方式，也使他成为世界上最富有的人之一。

But despite the elaborate celebrations the company held on Tuesday to commemorate his departure, Mr. Ma isn’t going far.

但即便阿里巴巴周二举办了精心准备的庆祝活动纪念他的离去，马云也不会走太远。

On paper, Daniel Zhang, Alibaba’s chief executive, will succeed the 55-year-old Mr. Ma as executive chairman. Mr. Ma has said he will devote his time to philanthropy, especially rural education.

仅就字面看，阿里巴巴首席执行官张勇将接替现年55岁的马云担任董事局主席。马云曾表示他将致力于慈善事业，特别是农村教育。

“I’m not going to stop doing things,” he told a women’s entrepreneurship event in late August. “Alibaba is but one of my dreams. I’m still young.”

“我不会停止下来，”他在8月底一个女性创业者大会上表示。“阿里巴巴只是我梦想中的一个而已。我今天还很年轻”。

Alibaba on Tuesday evening celebrated Mr. Ma’s retirement — which also coincides with his birthday and the company’s 20th anniversary — with 80,000 of its employees in the Olympic Stadium in Hangzhou, the eastern city where the company has its headquarters. Plans included a parade of staff members in costumes, music and skits onstage, according to an Alibaba spokesman.

周二晚，阿里巴巴在杭州奥林匹克体育中心与8万名员工一起庆祝马云退休，这座东部城市是阿里总部所在地，当天恰好是马云的生日，也是公司成立20周年纪念日。据阿里巴巴发言人表示，节目包括员工花车游行、音乐和小品表演。

Mr. Ma, however, will remain a considerable force at the company. He is a lifetime member of the Alibaba Partnership, a group of a few dozen employees with tremendous power over the company’s board and leadership, as well as its bonus pool.

但马云仍将是阿里的一股重要力量。他是阿里巴巴合伙人制度(Alibaba Partnership)的终身成员，该团体的几十名成员对公司董事会和领导层，乃至奖金池有着巨大的影响力。

The partnership also holds sway over key licenses that Alibaba requires in order to do business on the mainland.

该合伙人制度还对阿里巴巴在大陆开展业务所需的关键执照拥有支配权力。

Perhaps most crucially, Mr. Ma will still control the parent company of Alipay, the Chinese online payment system used in many of Alibaba’s digital marketplaces. That business fiercely competes with WeChat, owned by Tencent Holdings, which has become a power in online payments in China, giving Mr. Ma a continuing challenge on the business front.

或许最关键的是，马云仍将控制支付宝的母公司，阿里巴巴许多数字市场使用的都是这个中国的在线支付系统。这项业务与腾讯控股旗下的微信支付存在激烈竞争，后者已成为中国在线支付的一支强大力量，给马云在业务领域带来持续挑战。

“As long as Jack Ma has the lifetime partnership, he will be in charge of the Alibaba empire,” Fang Xingdong, a Chinese internet veteran and sometimes Alibaba critic, wrote on his social media WeChat account. Mr. Fang wrote that Tuesday marked Mr. Ma’s third “retirement.” The first was in 2006 and the second in 2013 when Mr. Ma relinquished his roles as president and chief executive.

“马云有永久合伙人就足以驾驭整个阿里帝国，”中国互联网老将、有时撰文批评阿里的方兴东在他的社交媒体微信账户上写道。方兴东写道，周二标志着马云的第三次“退休”。第一次是在2006年，第二次在2013年，当时马云辞任公司总裁与首席执行官的职位。

“I can’t help but wonder what Jack’s fourth retirement would be like” he wrote.

“畅想一下马云的第四次退休，将会如何？”他写道。

Starting as a company that aimed to connect Chinese manufacturers with small foreign businesses, Alibaba struck gold when it switched its focus to become an online marketplace for Chinese sellers and consumers. Its rise coincided with the spread of internet culture in China and, later, smartphones, transforming Chinese society into one where consumers can buy products, services and even investment products with a tap of a screen.

阿里巴巴创立之初旨在帮中国制造商与外国小企业建立联系，在将重心转移到连接中国销售商和消费者的在线市场之后成功掘金。它的崛起适逢中国互联网文化的传播以及后来智能手机的广泛应用，实现了中国社会消费者轻触屏幕便可购买产品、服务甚至投资产品的转型。

The company has grown into a commercial behemoth, with arguably the deepest reach into the country’s economy of all Chinese businesses.

该公司已成长为一家商业巨头，可以说在所有中国企业中，对中国经济影响最大。

Alibaba’s rise was cemented in 2014 when its initial public offering in New York raised over $21 billion. It also cemented his personal wealth, and by many counts he is China’s richest man. The Hurun Report, a research organization in Shanghai that tracks the wealthy in China, estimates his wealth at $38 billion.

2014年，阿里巴巴在纽约首次公开募股筹集逾210亿美元，崛起地位得到巩固。这也使马云的个人财富得到巩固，从很多统计来看，他都是中国最富有的人。据上海追踪中国富豪情况的研究机构胡润百富(Hurun Report)估计，他的财富达380亿美元。

Alibaba also owns China’s biggest cloud-computing business and one of its biggest meal-delivery services and logistics networks. Overall, the company is still growing at a healthy pace.

阿里还拥有中国最大的云计算业务，以及最大的送餐服务和物流网络之一。整体来看，该公司增长态势依然良好。

“We strove for bigger and stronger companies in the last century,” Mr. Ma said in a speech at a business event earlier this year. “Today we need to think how to create good companies. We need to make our clients, society, employees, ourselves and our families happy. Only good companies like this can last.”